A burning BMW careens down the cliff north of Rio Rancho High School at the start of the school's forensic class murder investigation on Thursday, March 13, 2008. Each year, Mary Robinson comes up with an elaborate, and realistic, murder scene. Students must use the skills they learn in class to find out who did it. The teens are split into teams, and it's a race to see which solves the crime first. (AP Photo/The Journal, Greg Sorber)

Carlee Wisemann, left, and Jacob Gonzalez, Rio Rancho High School forensic class students, take notes at the site of a mock murder and car arson site behind the school on Thursday, March 13, 2008. Each year, Mary Robinson comes up with an elaborate, and realistic, murder scene. Students must use the skills they learn in class to find out who did it. The teens are split into teams, and it's a race to see which solves the crime first. (AP Photo/The Journal, Greg Sorber) ** THE GALLUP INDEPENDENT OUT**

But sights like that are becoming a tradition at Rio Rancho High as part of the school's forensics curriculum.

On a recent Thursday morning, forensics students in the class of Mary Robinson gathered behind the school to watch the flaming BMW tumble down the steep cliff that runs along the backside of the campus. The car was the first step in creating a murder mystery students must solve.

Each year, Robinson comes up with an elaborate, and realistic, murder scene. Students must use the skills they learn in class to find out who did it. The teens are split into teams, and it's a race to see which solves the crime first.

This year's murder involved the discovery of a body in the trunk of a burning car that belongs to a teacher.

Rio Rancho Fire Rescue volunteered to participate in the exercise. Fire crews started the car on fire and pushed it off the cliff. A crew waited below to put out the flames.

Students must try to find out when the murder occurred, the owner of the car, with whom the victim was last seen, possible motives for the crime and what kind of weapon the killer or killers used. The more information that is gathered, Robinson said, the more likely the students are to solve the crime.

As in real life, pulling off the perfect crime is almost impossible. Robinson spends hours coming up with an idea for the murder, lining up all the necessary materials, writing a back story and creating a realistic crime scene.

Even with the preparation, things do not always go off quite as planned.

In this case, the plan was for the fire department to set the car on fire and launch it off the cliff. The hope was that the car would have enough momentum to make it to the bottom of the hill.

There was a small problem:

"The car seems to have been left in gear," a firefighter on top of the hill radioed to battalion chief Sean Bergen, who was standing at the bottom of the cliff.

"It's stuck in gear?" Bergen said.

"Yes, in gear," the firefighter said.

"Mary, the car was left in gear," Bergen said

The pronouncement was followed by laughter from not only Robinson but her students and the firefighters.

But the firefighters didn't let a little thing like a gearshift stop them from completing the task at hand. They doused the flames, reached into the car and popped the gear. Moments later, the car was sailing off the cliff enveloped in flames.

The momentary delay meant the flames were not as big as planned and the car had less of a running start before flying off the edge. As a result, the car didn't quite make it to the bottom so students had to trek up the cliff to look for clues.

The class has become a favorite and has grown from one to several sections.

Parents Terry and Sherry McCabe came to watch the event. Their daughter, Micah McCabe, who was home-schooled until eighth grade, is a senior at the school and enrolled in the course.

"She loves the class," Sherry McCabe said. "It's been interesting and exciting for her. It's just neat that Rio Rancho High School will support their teachers to do something like this and that teachers will go all out to help students learn."